Many thanks to everyone for their assistance. It's clear that the hardware as it stands won't support Fedora 9.0 on its own. For stand-alone PC's I'll have to use more memory or an older less demanding version (say Mandrake 8.2), and that if I want to use the workstations as they stand for the school, I'll need to go down the thin client route. Alexander Dalloz - Thank you for pointing out in great detail where I have gone wrong. Whoever said that our German friends don't have a sense of humour? I have made this a very clean reply as I am not as much of an expert as you on netiquette. Perhaps you could give me some tips. M Ps - I thought that it was gnothE seauton.